So after today’s session it has become very clear to me that I needed to reign in my Solo piece.
While researching this piece I came across Catalina Lercaro, an old story that I was told as a teenager on a school trip and had since forgotten about. My research re-awakened my curiosity for this story and as I researched it, I became almost obsessed with telling Catalina’s story. As my piece began to form itself around this story; my original idea ( showing the audience the Canarian culture by re-creating Canarian day), no longer seemed to fit in. At this point, I reached a bit of an en pas; I did not want to completely discard my original idea, but I also had this desire to tell Catalina’s story that would not go away. The two ideas I was thinking of would not go hand in hand for the purposes of this piece, yet I found it incredibly difficult to make a decision between the two.
During today’s lesson we wrote down information on our audience, and who they are in relation to our characters. During this exercise, I decided that my audience are going to be a group of English “Tourists” visiting Tenerife. I chose to write a monologue aimed at these tourists.
While writing the afore mentioned monologue the idea came to me that I should stick to my original idea of showing them the Canarian culture through Canarian day. Though I am not discarding Catalina entirely, she will still be my main character and I will perform the piece as her. But I will not be telling her story, I will simply mention it so as to give the audience the opportunity to research her themselves.
My piece is now (hopefully) going to be a durational piece, during which I am going to be in traditional clothes, in the character of Catalina Lercaro. It is going to be an interactive piece (during which the audience can come and go as they please). There will be a series of activities to show the audience throughout the day, and to get them to take part in. All of these activities will be like the ones done on Canaraian day in Tenerife.